


in a dark and lonely place

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters: Gold Rush!AU [29]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alliances, Brotherly Angst, Catholic Guilt, Dubious Morality, Gen, Gunslinging, Implied Adult Situations, Implied/Referenced Sex, Self-Destruction, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Westward Ho!, first kill, title from Louis L'Amour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-25 15:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18264392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: “Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble. It sounds swell when you write about it, but it's hell when you meet it face to face in a dark and lonely place.”  - Louis L'Amour





	1. Caranthir

The days are brutally long and the stars at night are blue-white. Caranthir shuts his eyes and finds that they linger under his eyelids in prick-points of painful brightness.

Kansas territory ends like this: with mosquito swarms in the air so thick and black that the sky seems to crawl with them. Mosquitoes in their hair. Mosquitoes in the stew at supper. The mosquitoes seem to prefer Caranthir more than anyone else.

Huan kills a rattlesnake. Its fangs drip venom and the twins turn a little green, wondering whether it would burn through the leather of their boots. They were the ones who found the creature; Caranthir is (momentarily) envious.

His envy is quenched because Athair is furious. Athair treads the diamond-patterned length of the rattler’s body into the dust, until the bones crunch beneath his boots, as if Huan had not done enough by snapping it in two. “If it had bitten you,” Athair tells the twins, his finger jabbing through the air, “You could have died.”

The twins cry, but only when Athair stalks off to tell Maedhros and Maglor that they will have to move camp.

 

Rattlesnakes appear in more than the desert—according to Celegorm, and obviously, because they found one here. They  _are_  going to reach desert sooner or later, though. Caranthir doesn’t want to think of bleached bones and air even dryer than the dusty air of Kansas territory, but he knows that that is what lies ahead.

In the face of such a future, he collects a few blades of grass. He braids them like Maglor used to braid Mother’s hair, and tucks the plaited strands with the rest of his growing collection of treasures. First he filched Mother’s paints from her abandoned pack. The twins would try to claim them if they knew he had them, so they don’t know that he has them. Then the small riverstones, the rattlesnake’s tail. A seeded sunflower, the petals withered to dark gold. He has, too, the arrowhead that Maedhros dug out of the side of one of the wagons, from their close call with a tribe of native men who were only shadows behind rocks with long, cruel bows in their hands.

“Indians,” said Curufin.

Athair shook his head. “They’re not Indians,” he said. It is rare for Athair to reprimand Curufin. “That is only a word used by men who failed. They are Comanche.”

They had fled from those arrows, whipping up the horses, not being so careful of jostling rocks along the trail as they usually were.

“Why did we run?” Curufin asked, undeterred.

“Because that land is theirs,” Athair says. “And they have the right to defend it.”

Caranthir looks at Curufin, whose eyes are fixed on Athair like a moth to flame. Caranthir looks at Maedhros, who is looking at the ground.

Maedhros, at least, is thinking of the bridge.

_They have the right to defend it._

Caranthir does not sleep that night.

 

There are mountains now, so high they block the stars. Are these the same that Finrod saw? Caranthir gnaws his lip.

“We’re running out of potatoes,” Maglor says, tapping his pencil against his knee. Caranthir thought he was writing poetry or songs, since that is what Maglor usually does with his journals, but now Caranthir catches a glimpse of the page and sees little lines of marching numbers.

Why hasn’t Maglor asked  _him_  for help? Caranthir is very good at arithmetic. He always helped Mother—

No one else says anything. Maedhros is probably the one Maglor wanted an answer from, but Maedhros has stepped away from the fire with Athair. Caranthir scoffs privately. Maglor has his moments, but he’s mostly a sodding awful older brother. He can’t do anything without asking Maedhros for his opinion.

Caranthir leans back, too far, and rests his elbow on Huan’s tail.

Huan yelps.

“Watch it, you ass,” Celegorm snaps. To Maglor, he adds, “Who gives a rat’s tit if we have potatoes? Our ancestors are rolling in their graves seeing how you cook them, anyway. Slimy as mud.”

“Do rats have—” Amras starts up, and Maglor interrupts him, looking stormy and pinched all at once.

“Potatoes,” he answers, “Prevent scurvy. Among other things. And watch your mouth, Celegorm. I have a bar of soap in my pack and I’m not afraid to use it.”

Celegorm subsides, briefly, only to mutter to Curufin—“As if he’d waste any of his precious girly soap on my mouth.”

Caranthir is nearer to Celegorm than Curufin is, both in age, and in where they’re sitting. These things never matter. He hears Curufin say, “Scurvy? Who does he think he is, Fingon?”

Maedhros moves very quietly when he wants to. He is behind them, certainly close enough to hear what was said. The back of Caranthir’s neck prickles.

“Go help Athair,” Maedhros orders, and Celegorm and Curufin do as they’re told, for once.

Maedhros stalks towards the fire, leaning to poke at the contents of the Dutch oven.

“We’re running out of potatoes,” Maglor says again, plaintively.

“Mm.”

"Should I start digging up dandelions?" Maglor demands.

 _Poetic hysteria_ , Caranthir thinks, and sighs.

Maedhros shrugs. “Have you found any?” He sounds tired. Maedhros always sounds tired these days.

“No.”

The twins appear from wherever they’ve been playing—they are _children_ , still, and so Caranthir will call it _playing_ in the disdainful solitude of his mind—and curl up against Maedhros, one on either side. He puts his arms around them.

“Would you rather be scalped or tarred and feathered?” Amrod asks.

“I would you rather you not trouble your heads with such mad notions,” Maedhros says, in his older brother voice. “You have not been straying out of sight of the wagons, have you?” 

“No!” They’re indignant. Caranthir scowls.

“We need to talk to Athair about supplies.” Maglor has circled back to nagging again.

“I _have_ ,” Maedhros snaps. It’s so rare that his tone is sharp with Maglor that Caranthir feels his cheeks flushing in sympathy. Sympathy for Maglor!

There is a moment's pause.

Maedhros disentangles his hand from Amrod’s grip and rubs his forehead. “Athair has decided to return to the main road. It will take us two days to rejoin it, by his reckoning. And then there will be a town a short while after that.” 

Maglor is still a little sulky, but he stirs supper again, putting his journal aside. “So Athair does have a map.”

“Of course.”

“He has not shown it to us.”

“Do you question his methods?” Maedhros’s voice is very mild now.

“Maitimo...”

Maedhros sighs. “Forgive my mood. What do we live on tonight? No potatoes, I imagine.”

“No, they’re here.”

“They’re _slimy_ ,” Amrod says.

 _What a baby_ , Caranthir thinks, _just like Celegorm_.

He decides to slink away and lie on the cool grass, with a blanket over his face in case the mosquitoes are hungry, but Maglor takes notice of him at last.

“We should do some washing. Caranthir?”

He’s always felt that he was born under an unlucky star. Maybe one of these blue-white ones. “We haven’t done washing for _weeks_.” They haven’t. They’ve hung worn shirts over the wagon hatches to air and then put them on again. “Why do I always…”

“The twins and I will help you,” Maedhros says, rising and displacing the twins. “We’re lucky to be near a river.

The sun is setting. They leave Maglor by the fire with a frown on his face. Celegorm and Curufin are lugging supplies from all of the wagons but one, haphazardly sorting.

Athair has returned from scouting and is cleaning the horses’ hooves. Caranthir wonders why Athair always leaves camp alone, but it is not his place to ask.

 “Why are they putting everything in Athair’s wagon?” Caranthir asks.

Maedhros could very well say, _If you had helped them, you would know_ , but he doesn’t. “We’ll be in closer quarters from now on,” he says. “Athair hopes to find others to join us. He’ll lend the wagons to them.”

Caranthir likes this not at all. _Others_? He tries to imagine strangers traveling and eating with them—but they all seem to wear his cousins’ faces. Artanis and he have always gotten on well, even though she’s a girl. Aredhel and Celegorm raise hell together. And Maedhros and Fingon are more like brothers than Caranthir is, sometimes, with any of his own.

“Who?” Amrod asks what Caranthir can’t.

Maedhros shrugs. This time there’s a tightness to it. Maedhros doesn’t like the plan either, which doesn’t surprise Caranthir. If he had to guess, Maedhros likes almost none of this—but Maedhros _is_ very good at keeping people guessing.

Caranthir fills his arms with bundles of grimy shirts and trousers, and tries to hold his breath.

 

“The potatoes are good tonight,” Amras says virtuously, at supper.

Maglor thanks him, a little strained, while Celegorm snorts into his bowl.

Athair doesn’t say, _Celegorm, manners!_ , like he used to at home.

The stars behind their heads leave so much space, and only Mother could fill it.

“No doubt,” Athair says, finishing his coffee—Athair can drink hot coffee even on sweltering days—“You have all heard of our plan to change course.” He has set aside his bowl; Caranthir sees a few potatoes still floating in it. “It is not a decision made lightly. We will need allies where we are going.”

“Afraid of more Comanches?” Curufin asks. Curufin has been as sharp as a blade lately, but Caranthir still wonders where he gets the nerve.

Athair smiles fondly at his favorite, and ah, there it is. The only explanation one needs. “No, son,” Athair answers. “But we travel in haste to arrive first, not to find peace.” He taps his long fingers against his dust-filmed knee. “Our lives are contests, like or not.”

Caranthir looks at each of his brother’s faces in turn. He does not like what he sees there. Likely, it is for the better that he cannot see his own.

 

He wishes he knew how to paint.

Mother’s colors are rich and vibrant, all behind walls of glass. He rolls the tiny jars between his fingers. He remembers sitting beside her in her workroom, chewing on the ends of paintbrushes, watching for beads to splatter to the floor. Those he pressed beneath his fingers, and when he rubbed the many colors together—ruby red and lemon yellow, darkest blue and inky black—they smudged to the color of mud.

 

There are no rattlesnakes on the main road.

“This is the last time all of us will drive wagon,” Celegorm grumbles, glaring in Caranthir’s direction as if to say, _it shall be you who yields first, not me_.

Caranthir longs to land a fist on Celegorm’s (finally) healed nose, but not out of any particular ire. He turns away.

The town starts as a mud-smudge, then sharpens into focus as they draw near. Athair orders them to turn away from the trail once more, making camp as they always do—sheltered from sight. Hiding isn’t hard because the land around is hilly, the shoulders of the ground bending down to the river’s edge.

The town, like the river, nestles in the cleft of the mountains.

Athair announces that only Maedhros and Maglor will go to town; the rest of them will dine as usual. “Caranthir,” Athair orders, speaking his name for the first time in a week, “You’ll do the cooking.”

This is hardly fair. Celegorm complains the most; the twins aren’t such children that they can’t—but Caranthir says nothing.

It is the easiest way.

 

“I don’t like this,” Maglor mutters, as he slips his coat over his shoulders and holsters his gun at his hip. “Making _alliances_ at a _saloon_?”

“You’d do well to sing rather than talk,” Maedhros says. He takes a long knife in his boot as well as a gun, and Caranthir sees him tip back a flask that glints silver in the shadows. “What?” Maedhros asks, in answer to what must be Maglor’s skeptical glance. “Might as well get started early.”

A twig snaps under Caranthir’s boot, and he slips away before he is spotted. Still, he watches them when they ride off, through the dust of the main road. They are like Celegorm and Curufin, like the twins—matched as he will never be.

Caranthir is alone. He doesn’t think he chose it.


	2. Maglor

July, Maglor thinks, has set like the sun. August in Formenos would be wreathed in goldenrod, overshadowed by leaves at their darkest green. August in the city would be sweltering, staining fine linen and silk with sweat.

They do not worry over sweat here. They wake gritty-eyed and rank, and go to bed the same.

Nothing, then, is as it was. The only familiar sight in this rock-split wilderland is his family. Maglor clings to that familiarity and knows he equates it too much to humanity. Specifically, theirs.

He glances left. Maedhros rides with the easy posture he has had almost since Athair first set him atop their old Shetland pony.

“What if there is no—saloon?” Maglor asks. The word is still strange to him.

“There’ll be a drinking-house in every town,  _cano_. Depend upon it.”

Maglor stares with most unpoetic hatred at the sky, which is washed resplendent by evening colors.  “Why can’t you just admit,” he snipes bitterly, “that you’re miserable?”

Maedhros’s pace doesn’t falter. The sunlight crowns him in ruddy gold. “Are _you_  miserable, Maglor?”

“No. I’m not saying—I mean, I wish things could have gone  _differently_ , but I understand why they didn’t.” This is a tangle of truth and lies, but Maglor thinks he’s entitled to it. “It is just that, when life is dreadful, I don’t pretend otherwise.”

“Whereas I humiliate myself first and then assume an air of unrelenting good humor later?” Maedhros returns, as pleasantly as if they are discussing the weather. “That  _is_  what you were about to say, isn’t it?”

Maglor wasn’t about to say it out loud.

Once set off, Maedhros isn’t finished. “Has it occurred to you—really occurred to you—that Athair has enemies? I don’t mean a few gun-happy constables. I mean”— _Melkor, but he still won’t say it, even now_ —“People who want him dead only after they’ve made him suffer first.”

“I am just as aware of that as you are,” Maglor answers. In Formenos, in the city, he felt much older than he does now. “But what does that have to do with—”

“With being cheerful? Consider it training. Tonight I’m going to win at cards, but there are bigger games than that, not far in the future. Athair’s enemies are our enemies. We should learn not to show weakness.”

Maglor can’t imagine—or doesn’t want to imagine—a circumstance where this advice holds brutally true. In a gunfight, he’s learned, there isn’t time for weakness; only death.

There is no more time for conversation, either, because they have reached their destination. The town is the color of dust. It smells like dust too; dust and horse dung and old leather. Maedhros dismounts and ties off his reins around one of the hitching posts. Maglor does the same.

 _I don’t belong here_ , Maglor says, but only in the silence of his own mind. There is a life—shrunken in dimension to the size of a raindrop on parched earth—where his fingers only know the callouses of harp-strings and piano keys, where his lips seek out the sweetness of Annabella’s skin, and—

Maedhros strides ahead of him and pushes the swinging doors open with both hands. He’s a sight, and he knows it, and Maglor knows it, and now whoever is drinking rotgut in this hellhole will know it too. Maedhros outgrew Athair at sixteen. Even in mud-caked riding boots and a battered coat, he turns every head in the room. Maglor can hear music in the jingle of his spurs.

Maglor has his tin whistle tucked in his vest, concealed as his talent always is. Maglor does not impress at first sight.

The lull of their arrival subsides after grizzled patrons and rouge-cheeked women alike have taken in the contradiction of delicate cheekbones, flaming hair, and a glimpse of deadly gunmetal. Maedhros, as is his wont, melts easily into the crowd, flipping coins down for a flagon of (warm) beer and taking a seat at the card table after a chorus of invitations. Maglor hangs back.

“Lonely?”

He almost jumps out of his skin. The barmaid who addressed him grins, showing that she doesn’t have all her teeth. Maglor’s gaze is drawn by this, which is rude, but he has never been exactly  _suave_  under pressure.

She isn’t offended. “Lost ‘em fighting, not from rot,” she confides merrily, filling him a pint. It smells like horse-piss. Maglor doesn’t even want to  _think_  of drinking it. “Swear you wouldn’t notice a thing, if you let me…”

“Forgive me, I’m a little tired,” Maglor says hastily, which is exactly the sort of courtly expression that has no place here. He clears his throat. “I’ll take something harder. “ He can’t have that vile beer.

She shrugs and stoops to reach under the bar, affording Maglor a spilling view he doesn’t want. He averts his gaze to Maedhros, who is charmingly, and intentionally, losing at cards. Maedhros drinks the putrid beer as if it is Olympian nectar, seemingly unaffected by the fact that the girl at his side (who looks to have all her teeth) is running her fingers through his hair.

“Your brother?” the barmaid asks, with another gappy grin.

Maglor nods. “How did you know?”

“There’s a resemblance.”

Maglor blushes and takes the finger of whiskey she hands him. It goes down like fire. His eyes water, but he doesn’t cough.

Her name is Amelia. Her father and her uncle own the saloon, their plans shifting from travel further west since her father’s leg was broken in a bad fall and he couldn’t ride any longer.

“Too bad,” she says. “They wanted to find gold.”

“We’re also looking for gold,” Maglor says, and then wonders if he’s spoken out of turn. Across the smoky room, Maedhros has started winning. He looks guilelessly surprised by his luck.

“Go round back with me?” Amelia asks, and Maglor is reduced to stuttering once again.

“I—”

“Not for that. Land’s sakes. You’re as skittish as a newborn foal.”

Maglor feels his whole face, chin to ears, growing hot.

“C’mon.” Amelia slips out from behind the bar, and he follows her. If Maedhros notices him leaving, he makes no sign.

Behind the saloon the ground dips down into a bank covered by sparse grass. Amelia sits down and pats the space beside her.

Maglor sits.

“I seen your pipe in your jacket,” she says. “Play something for me?”

It is only when he feels the rush of gladness in his veins that Maglor realizes—he hasn’t been happy in weeks. “Are you always demanding performances of your patrons?”

“Your brother’s putting on a different kind of show,” she points out. “Not a new one, though he’s a sight handsomer than anyone that ever’s come through. I’m trapped here by the mountains. The ones with eyes like yours are the only fun I get.”

Maglor takes out his tin whistle and plays. He doesn’t sing the latest dreadful verses that scrawl painfully over his journal, or the love songs that Annabella will never hear, or indeed, anything at all. He plays instead the melodies he wrote to hold those words—melodies that are freer, perhaps, without them.

Amelia closes her eyes. She is too rough to be pretty, in the ways Maglor is used to thinking of beauty. Yet gratitude is lovely in its own quarter.

When he finishes—when he has no count of how much time has gone by, only noticing now that the moon is rising full—she says,

“I’ll give you a kiss if you like.”

“There’s someone else,” Maglor says, even though, by rights, he should admit that only in past tense.

“A girl back home?”

“Yes.” He remembers, suddenly, that he is a murderer. “I am never going to see her again.”

“Hard luck,” Amelia says. “Well, we should get inside. If my father catches me out here instead of in there, he’ll have my hide.”

Maglor returns to find the men grumbling about a newcomer’s luck. Maedhros is nowhere to be seen. Maglor feels his throat tighten with worry, but then he sees his brother’s unmistakable figure descending the back stairs. Maedhros sees him and jerks his chin in the direction of the door, which means it’s time to go.

Maglor scrounges in his pocket for coins, remembering the whiskey, but Amelia waves it away. Maglor nods his thanks and sprints out the saloon doors, narrowly escaping being walloped in the spine by their backswing.

Maedhros is untying his horse with one hand and buttoning his shirt with the other.  Maglor takes in his rumpled hair, the flush in his cheeks, and gasps. “I thought you were in danger somewhere, not—”

“Oh, don’t be a prude,” says Maedhros, not looking him in the eyes. “Where were  _you_?”

Maglor mounts Hector. “Having a conversation.”

“We’re even, then. I had many conversations.”

“Successful ones?”

“Very. Although I’ve worn out my welcome, a bit.” He swings up onto Alexander and favors Maglor with a tight smile. “We’ve run our errand. We’re ninety dollars and three potential companions richer.” Maedhros taps his heels against Alexander’s sides and Maglor has to do more than that to keep up with his brother’s pace.

He doesn’t want to be called prudish again, but he is also rather terrible at letting things go. “That’s all well and good,” he says. With no wind, they can hear each other well enough as they ride. “I still don’t think our errand called for debauchery.”

Maedhros scoffs. “Christ, Maglor, you sound like Fing—”

There is a curious little silence, punctuated only by the beating of hooves.

Maedhros stares straight ahead. His knuckles are white on the reins. “I did what Athair asked. I know which men have money to spend, and what they spend it on. Who cheats at cards. Who grows violent with drink. Do you think there’s a much better measure of a man, Maglor, than how he treats a woman? Women remember faults and cruelties, weaknesses and kindnesses, better than anyone.”

Maglor thinks of Amelia, with moonlight on her rounded face.  “You might have just  _talked_  to her.”

“Without raising suspicion? This isn’t a tete-a-tete in New York.” He  _does_  look at Maglor now, and his face is so grim it is almost like Athair’s. “And women, too, want something in return for information.”

Maglor says nothing.

Maedhros’s voice rises a little, as if Maglor is hard of hearing. “I promised Athair my life. A month later I killed for him. And I’ll kill again, and so will you, more than likely. A little  _debauchery_ , as you so winsomely put it, is hardly the worst our future has for us. For me.”

Despite himself, Maglor reaches down within himself, testing for the remnant of that rush of happiness. It is, as he expected, long gone.

 

Athair counts the gold and asks Maedhros questions—names, occupations, whereabouts. Maedhros tells of the three men whom he singled out: two passing through, and the local butcher’s son. Athair will look for them in the morning, gathering his own information to test against what Maedhros learned from beating them at cards and taking the barmaid upstairs.

“And you, Maglor.” Athair turns suddenly. “Where are your winnings?”

Maglor feels as if his tongue has swollen in his mouth, preventing him from speaking.  _Winnings? Did Athair think I—_

Maglor cannot bluff, and does not care for poker, or blackjack, or whatever it was they were playing.

“I didn’t…”

“He was my look-out,” Maedhros intervenes quickly, but of course Athair is not appeased.

“I did not send you both, leaving our camp less-guarded, for Maedhros to do all the work,” he says sternly. “Did four hours slip through your fingers? Are you my second eldest, or one of the twins, still having to be minded by an older brother?”

Maglor wants to say many things in his defense, but they would only hurt Athair or Maedhros or both, and so he says nothing. He hangs his head.

Athair drags a hand over his face. “Enough. Celegorm goes with you next time, Maedhros, as I intended from the beginning.”

Maedhros opens his mouth and shuts it again. Athair leaves them and heads for the main wagon, disappearing into the shadows.

“He wanted to send Celegorm with you all along?” Maglor is stung, all the more so because he’s gone and proven Athair right and Maedhros wrong.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Maedhros says, reading the thought. “Celegorm would be more a risk than a help, as I tried to tell Athair.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his long coat. “He might nag less.”

“I am sorry,” Maglor says.

“I just said—”

“I meant about the nagging.”

Maedhros claps him on the shoulder. “I deserve it, as we both know.”

This is a tangle of truth and lies, but Maglor doesn’t argue.


	3. Ambarussa

The new men are named Homer, Jethro, and Galway. Galway is his last name, not his first, but it is an Irish name so Athair does not ask for another.

Amrod says the men are interesting, Amras says that they are strange. After some debate, they agree that both words are right, and also that everything is strange now.

"We will have to be extra careful about the Game," Amras points out gloomily.

Amrod pokes him, in the ticklish spot in his ribs. They have different ticklish spots. That's one of the things most people don't know about twins. "They wouldn't even understand what the Game was about, silly," Amrod says.

Ever since Athair was angry about the rattlesnake, they have had to play the Game in whispers. They can't go out of sight of the wagons, Athair said, or he'll put them on leashes.

Athair's threats are best not tested.

 

Jethro is only Maedhros's age. He is not handsome, though: he has thick hands and a thick neck, which Curufin said he inherited from all the bulls he chopped up at his father's shop.

"How many bulls do you think are around here?" Caranthir sniffed.

"Bison, then," Curufin said.

Jethro is friendly enough, though, and he talks with Celegorm about hunting. He mentions deer and rabbits, even mountain-goat, but never bison.

Homer is the eldest of the men--a few years younger than Athair--so he is given the wagon to drive. Amras hears Athair telling Maedhros that he expected a fight, but Jethro and Galway are both even-tempered and do not mine sharing a wagon with a stranger.

Therefore, Maedhros and Maglor and Celegorm still drive the three that are empty, though Athair insists they keep all supplies in his. They sleep there, too, but it is cramped quarters, so everyone but Athair and Amras and Amrod drag their bedrolls outside.

This means they can't play the Game at night, either. It's all very unfair.

 

They don't reach another town for almost a week. It's not a bad week, even with the strangers.

Galway takes a great interest in Maglor's music and laments over a bodhran that he carried a thousand miles before the hide split.

That, of course, captures Athair's ear in turn, and the fire crackles cheerily as they talk of instruments and leather preservation, two topics sufficient to engage almost everyone present.

Maedhros is quiet, though, so Amrod climbs into his lap and Amras, jealous, leans against his shoulder. Maedhros rests his chin on Amrod's hair and they can both feel him breathe out. Up close, Maedhros's breath is a little shaky, which is curious, because he never seems to tremble at all.

"Curufin says," Amras begins, braiding the ends of Maedhros's hair, where it curls behind his ear, "that rattlesnake bites swell into big balloons because the snake has laid eggs with its hollow teeth, and even if you don't die, the spot where you got bit will get fatter and fatter until a thousand babies burst out."

Maedhros shakes his head. “No.”

“No?”

“No, that does not happen.”

“But Curufin…”

Maedhros guides Amras’s fingers out of his hair and untangles the braid. “How many times has Curufin told you falsehoods?”

“Like with the crushed woman,” Amrod agrees.

Maedhros raises his eyebrows. “The…what?”

“Curufin says there is a woman whose head was smashed by rocks when she tried to climb up the mountains and now she wanders on the road and climbs into wagons to find another head,” Amras explains.

“But we know that’s not true, because Moth—” Amrod starts, and then stops. They both stare at each other. That part wasn’t real—the part where Mother scolded Curufin and made him apologize and also made him sleep in the wagon for a week. That was part of the Game.

Maedhros looks from one to the other. There’s a question forming on his lips, but he’s not Athair. He doesn’t ask it.

 

Before bedtime, the fire is heaped high. To keep mountain lions away, says Curufin, and Celegorm agrees with him, so it must be true. The first watch goes to Maglor, and Amrod and Amras crawl underneath the wagon and watch a spider weaving her web between the spokes of a wheel. Boots walk past—Athair and Maedhros.

“Galway confirms we shall reach a trading post tomorrow,” Athair says. “He proposes that he should help to replenish our supplies, and I agreed. As for the rest, you and Celegorm will go ahead as planned.”

“Do you not trust them?” Maedhros asks, in a low voice. “Galway and the others?”

“I trust only my sons,” Athair says. “These men—I do not see much cause to  _distrust_  them, yet. But if you bring back twice their number, as I hope you will, we shall be the minority. I would not depend on another’s judgment in shifting such a balance.”

“I understand,” Maedhros murmurs.

“We have allowed travel to make us lazy,” Athair says. “And soft. Your brothers have not practiced sparring since we crossed the river, nor their marksmanship.”

Amrod puts his hand over his mouth to stifle a whimper. In the Game, Mother says,  _it was all a dream_ , and then she takes them back, riding on fast horses, to see how the bridge still stands, how there is no red-stained ground beyond it.

“They have been hunting and riding,” Maedhros points out. “I am sure they are stronger than they were when we began.”

“And yet, without immediate danger, they grow careless. The twins are behaving like children.  
 Amrod and Amras lie very still beneath the wagon, as Athair continues, “You coddle them too much. We need a show of strength. Stop letting them cling to you like infants.”

“They are very young.” Maedhros speaks more quietly still. If they could see his face, no doubt it would be turned towards the ground. Maedhros rarely looks Athair in the face when he argues with him. Maedhros rarely argues with him at all.

“They will  _die_  young, if we treat them as such.”

Maedhros says nothing.

“I have spoken to Celegorm and given him strict instructions to do as you bid. Which requires, Maedhros, that you bid him to do something.” Athair’s voice is relentless, even though he does not raise it much above Maedhros’s. “Do not let him kick his heels and be useless and insolent. Can he win at cards?”

“He can’t bluff.” Once, there might have been a shade of amusement in Maedhros’s tone. Now there is none.

“Use him to get information, then.”

“That…” Maedhros seems to change course. “He is not particularly patient. But I will find a task for him, Athair. I can better decide on it when I see what we face. This is a trading post. He may be of more help with gathering supplies. Will you let him bring Huan?”

“I doubt I can prevent it.” Athair chuckles, as though his bad mood has fled away. Amras breathes a little easier; Amrod still frowns. “Very well then.” He turns and strides away, calling “Amras! Amrod!”

As one, they roll out under the opposite side of the wagon and run the long way round so that they appear to be coming from the other edge of the camp.

 

“ _So then_ ,” Amrod begins, because Athair is out walking and they have the wagon to themselves, “ _Mother tells us that she has found a waterfall, and the water tastes like sugar because the rocks are sweet. And we go climbing up onto the mountain, like goats_ —”

“Shh.” Amras rolls over, so that his back is to Amrod, and his shoulder-blade pokes Amrod almost in the chin. “I don’t want to play.”

“Why not?”

“ _Shh_! You’re being loud.”

“Why not?”—more quietly.

“It’s a baby game.” Amras’s shoulders are shivering, even though the air isn’t cold at all. “We’re not babies.”

Amrod jams his knuckles against his teeth to keep back the sob that rises in his throat.

 

“You two look tired today,” Maglor says. He has let Caranthir drive, and rides in the back of Athair’s wagon, toying with his harp-strings. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes.” They are both lying.

Maglor smiles. Maglor’s smiles are very warm, though he does not have dimples like Mother or Maedhros or Celegorm. “I find the air makes sleep a little different here,” he admits. “It gives you different dreams.”

“Is it air,” Amras asks, “That gives you dreams?”

Maglor’s smile falters just a little. “Many things can.” He bends his head over the string, tightening it with deft fingers.

“Where is your fiddle?” Amrod asks curiously. Maglor plays  _everything_ except the brass instruments, which he disdains as raucous and cruel to the ear. He could not bring his piano, of course, but nor does he seem to have brought the gold-fretted fiddle Grandfather Finwe gifted to him when he turned sixteen.

 _They_  were only eight, then.

Maglor nibbles at his lower lip before he answers. Then, very quickly and casually, he says, “I gave it to Fingon for safe-keeping.”

They miss Fingon. Fingon is by far the best of Uncle Fingolfin’s children; Turgon is stiff as a board, Aredhel is a terror, and Argon whines. But Fingon has shown them some of the plates in his anatomy book, explaining very kindly how blood flows and why one feels pain— _a good thing, pain,_  Fingon said,  _because it warns you_ —and though he is very grown-up, he is not too impatient to play with them.

Of course, that is likely because Maedhros plays with them, and Fingon does whatever he can to be in Maedhros’s company.

Fingon once spent Christmas at Formenos. Athair was pleased because—according to a number of conversations heard only through ears pressed against his study door—Fingon and Uncle Fingolfin were having a disagreement. Athair said to Mother, “ _The boy may not be a fool after all_ ,” and Mother said, “ _Good God, Feanor, try to have a little sympathy, for once in your life_ ,” and then there was fighting, but Fingon rode up with Maedhros and Maglor on Christmas Eve and Athair and Mother both received him smiling.

Fingon was polite as always but a little sad around his eyes. At least, he was sad until Maedhros dragged him along for sledding and sleighing and skating on Orome’s lake. Then Fingon’s cheeks and ears were as red as Caranthir’s, in the sharp wind, and he laughed with the rest of them when Amrod slipped snow down Celegorm’s back.

Of course, Celegorm’s blind rage is better forgotten now, but there were good things to be done all of Christmas week: mugs of steaming cider, stockings lumpy with sweet oranges and gold-wrapped chocolates, party crackers that popped in showers of sparks until Mother sent them all out in the snow to finish them. Fingon read them stories even more than Maglor did, and stroked their hair as gently as Maedhros would.

Yes, they miss Fingon. He is back behind the bridge, or maybe gone home to New York again. Wherever he is, he is closer to Mother than they are.

But  _safekeeping_  means that something will be given back.

 

“I want to go with you,” Curufin is saying, his jaw and eyes sharp. Everything about Curufin is pointy. He has Athair’s hunger right down to his bones.

“We want to, too,” Amrod and Amras chime, and Celegorm snorts with disgust.

“You’re all a bunch of hangers-on,” he says. “ _I_ am going with Maedhros because I can actually hold my liquor, and handle a gun.”

Curufin flinches. Later, he grabs them by their ears and hisses, “You little _brats_! You always have to ruin _everything_.”

Athair looks over, and he lets them go.

 

The sun is halfway down the sky when Maedhros and Celegorm and Galway the Irishman ride towards the new town.

Amrod thinks that this is the first day since the bridge that they haven’t played the Game. He wants it, badly—he wants to pretend that Mother is coming back for supper, hunting with her own slingshot that she used to use against the groundhogs in the garden.  _My littlest ones_ , Mother will say.  _Where have you been hiding?_

But the Game is for babies, and Athair’s words are still ringing in their ears.

Amrod does not want to die young.


	4. Maedhros

Maglor’s gaze is hovering like a mosquito, and Maedhros’s fingers itch to slap it away. “We’ll be back by the second watch,” he says, tying a clean kerchief around his throat. “Is that yours, tonight?”

Maglor shakes his head. They both know he’ll be awake anyway.

Turning aside, Maedhros checks his weapons and his money, and runs his fingers through his hair. Speaking is always dangerous, on the edge of decided fates, however great or small. Especially speaking to Maglor, who knows him better than anyone.

Maglor, though. Maglor tries again. “Have you at least had supper?”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“You should eat.”

Maglor is never going to stop nagging him as long as they both shall live. That thought is as close as he comes to comfort, these days.

He reaches into the wagon, lifts an apple from the sack in the corner, and waves it demonstratively at Maglor’s tight-pressed frown.

“I haven’t time for anything else.” Maedhros takes a bite, forces himself to swallow, and squints in the direction of the horses. “Celegorm! Tighten that girth, unless you want to ride upside down.”

 _Champing at the bit_ was a phrase designed to describe Celegorm’s current state. He is fidgeting and distracted, his hair tumbling over his shoulders and already in disarray despite careful combing. When he has straightened his tack, he checks his gun. It flits from one hand to the other, as if it has sprouted wings.

Is he so desperate for this errand? Maedhros envies him the enthusiasm.

“Good luck,” Maglor says, looking only at Maedhros, and when they are a few paces out of ear-shot, Celegorm scoffs,

“Sour grapes.”

Maedhros grinds his teeth. He cannot snap at Celegorm; Celegorm tolerates snapping as well as Huan would from another dog.

 _Patience_ , whispers a voice in his mind. He wishes it did not sound like his mother. He wishes she would leave him as surely as he left her.

 

The trading post is mainly a row of shopfronts, painted bright and brash against the backdrop of cragged mountains. It seems like a long-ago age, but the thought of traveling this land on foot as Finrod did—climbing between the flatiron rocks, scaling the peaks, facing down the sky—is a thousand times better than all the trudging miles of Athair’s road.

Finrod loves to talk with his hands, all swift, birdlike gestures and flickering fingers. On his return, he sketched the flight of eagles over snowcapped hills. He traced the lay of plains so broad and golden-brown that they seemed, in his words, like lands of sun alone.

Maedhros finds it difficult to imagine Finrod hating him. The difficulty makes it no less true.

 

The evening is still young; he knows he cannot remain melancholy. If only he was not so bone-weary, dragged along by invisible puppet-strings rather than by his own will—but, no, he must not think such thoughts. _That_ particular brand of self-pity reeks of the same selfish ogre that reared its head when he was fifteen and dreadfully homesick, or twenty and breaking off a tryst instead of sealing it with rings like he desperately wanted to.

Even _now_ , does he seek to blame an outside force for his own unhappiness?

 _These are not sins, my son_ , an old priest told him years ago—a French _curé_ , transplanted in New York by yet another bloody revolution. Maedhros had stuttered out a few anxieties as if they were wrongdoings, and left the worst unsaid.

To receive absolution with grave matter unconfessed is to leave unforgiven of all. He believed this even then, even while he pretended that his lips were sewn shut, and his shameful heart casketed away beyond the reach of his tongue.

Maglor still prays. Maglor _never_ keeps his mouth shut, in singing or praying or pleading that Maedhros not debase himself in one necessary way or another. So Maglor prays, and Maedhros hears him, and the words are not so very different than the knife in his boot.

(Those sins he held back, at fifteen, were—he sees now—pale and simple things. Yet the point stands, uncommonly knifelike also: Maedhros has always been a coward.)

 

They have reached the town; they tie off their horses. Galway tips his broad-brimmed hat in farewell, and he and Jethro head towards the gunsmith’s swinging sign, conversing in merry voices, and counting the coins in their pockets.

Maedhros reminds himself that gin will take the edge off.

“You know why we’re here,” he says to Celegorm, pulling the edge of his coat over his holstered Colt. “If you’re not making money or scouting prospects, ask yourself what you’re doing.”

Celegorm rolls his eyes, as horse-like in offense as he is in excitement. “I _know_.” Huan wags his tail and looks beseechingly up at Maedhros, as if to promise that he, at least, will be on his best behavior.

Maedhros suppresses a sigh. “Come along, then.”

The room is wreathed in smoke. All the men, young and old, seem to have faces like hatchets; ready to split artifice in two. As for the women—there are more than a few eager barmaids, this time. Maedhros sees the full skirts hiked up above silk stockings, the plunging bodices. He refrains from reaching over to lift Celegorm’s jaw back to its rightful place.

There are card games in one corner, and Maedhros moves towards them. Celegorm, with Huan at his heels, clutches Maedhros’s sleeve.

“Darts!” Celegorm whispers, with a grin.

It is Maedhros’s first (and last) relief. Celegorm has a fine throwing hand; he can win a little money, perhaps, and stay occupied.

“Don’t wander,” Maedhros warns, but he does not promise to be always in sight.

 

Poker is a grim business with men so suspicious and lynx-eyed. None of them seem tractable or trustworthy; Athair will be disappointed.

(Athair must not be disappointed.)

Maedhros wins a little, loses a little, and does not think that he can hope for more than fifty dollars if he wishes to keep his fists unbruised. Celegorm charms more of the assembled at the dartboard, and Maedhros glances away from his hand now and again to make certain that his brother’s fair head is where he last left it. It seems that a few of the patrons have begun to make wagers and bets for his brother’s stickpin performance.

The women, as expected, have noticed them both. Depending on his usual calculus, Maedhros is well aware that young and healthy travelers are an unusual prize.

 _A delicacy_ , he thinks, black-humored, and he lifts his head to face the chief competitor, whose hands rest on the shoulders of the men across the card-table, but whose eyes are fixed on him.

 

An hour later, the girl is half-dressed, her head lolling against his chest and her undone corset strings trailing over his arm.

The smell of sweat, the sour beer spilled beside the sagging bed—it is always Maglor who dreams of the sea, but now Maedhros imagines stepping out into endless, ice-cold depths, of being scraped raw and clean by the salt, of sinking into merciful darkness. The water would close over him as it would anything else. It would fill his lungs and drown him as it would any other living thing, good or evil or merely misfortunate.

"You look troubled," the girl murmurs, and she tilts her face up, pressing her lips to the hollow where his jaw meets his ear. He cannot tell if she is his age or a little older—her skin is roughened by mountain wind, and her eyes are glazed by a steady diet of alcohol, of serving too many men. Men like him, he acknowledges, by force of fact, and is once more repulsed. It is only now, _after_ , that he asks himself if Maglor is right; if none of this is truly necessary. But what practice has Maedhros in the sort of sincerity that his gentle brother knows best? Maedhros has always traded in lies and smiles and heady promises. _He_ is his strongest bargaining chip. The distractions—the _debauchery_ —he used to flirt with in the city taught him that perfectly well, better than any of the schoolmasters Athair unwillingly employed.

What other talent does he have than beauty, dog-loyalty, and the trigger-quickness of his right hand?

He does what he does best, then, even if it means ruining comfort in the trappings of pleasure. He makes his quarry feel _wanted_ , just as Celegorm makes his prey afraid, just as Athair has idea neither of quarry nor of prey, walking as he does among the shimmer and cloud of his brilliance. 

Maedhros waits for the flush of sated affection, the indulgence of lingering in each other's arms. _Then_ he tells her that he is troubled. _Then_ he weaves a story of his need, his planned yet fated rescue of a lost brother, who is held for bounty in California territory. The story changes each time, but the face of the long-lost brother is always Fingon’s.

Truth lends enough pain to make the lie believable.

 

(Fingon will never see him again, will never see him ruined by this and what ran before, this and what will surely come later.)

 

(Fingon once split his knuckles open defending Maedhros’s honor from a man who only sought to defend his sister’s.

The quip, _it was a mutual dishonoring_ , lived and died on Maedhros’s tongue before it was spoken. Failing to say those words—to set Fingon’s view of truth to rights—was, for a time, Maedhros’s greatest sin.)

 

“You could take _my_ brother with you,” the girl offers. Maedhros doesn’t know her name. He didn’t ask, and now asking would be an insult. “He’s not a bad fellow. Wants to see the world.”

“Why hasn’t he?”

“No money. Why do you think I do what I do?” She grins. “Present company excluded.”

Maedhros kisses her so that he doesn’t have to force a smile in return. “How old is he?”

“Twenty-six. And a fighter, he’d be a good man to have at your side.” She is momentarily distracted, her fingers settling on the uneven skin of his left shoulder. “You took a bullet?”

“Yes.” It no longer hurts; it feels like it should. “A robber.” _I was the robber_ , he does not add, _and I killed seven men in cold and loyal blood._

“Did you used to sail?” She squints. “I wouldn’t believe it, with a face as pale as yours.”

“No.” His lies leave ghosts as soon as he tells them. He knows she sees the anchor. He did not know it could still be seen, marred as it is. “It was just a boyish folly. But—you were speaking of your brother.”

“Yes,” she says. “He is—” She stops at the same sound that stops him.

The gunshot, for all that it is over quickly, is deafeningly loud.

Exactly how it happened, he never really knows. He only knows that when he stumbles into the drinking hall, hastily dressed, Celegorm is nowhere to be seen, and many booted feet are running.

 

Athair taught Maedhros how to shoot a gun when he was five years old. Athair did not need to say to Maedhros—or indeed, to any of them—that a perfect aim was expected.

(So, like many things—Maedhros aimed and fired and lined up the marks again until his little body was sore. When his time came, Maglor slunk away to whistle on grass-blades as soon as Athair’s back was turned. Caranthir and the twins were much the same, but Curufin was ruthless in his pursuit of marksmanship.

And Celegorm—)

 

Outside, night has fallen. Still, the lanterns burn. There is a shape in the dust of the road, a shape that can only be a body.

There is another leaning over it, hands pressed to the body’s chest as if against a wound, that can only be Maedhros’s brother.

Celegorm’s hands are berry-red with blood.

The man on the ground isn’t moving.


	5. Celegorm

The water is cold. Celegorm grinds his teeth to keep them from chattering, ducking his head as the rough fingers of the spiny thornbushes scrape his scalp.

“Stay still,” Maedhros says. The long tails of his coat floated at first, but now sodden, they sink below the surface. The pool reaches to their hips.

There is no other sound except the horses breathing and Huan paddling in a lazy circle. Athair’s horses are well-trained to follow where they are led, even into the shivering depths of a waterhole. Huan, of course, had only to be told to jump in. The hole is wide enough contain all five of them, the two horses and the hound and the two red-handed men.

_Men_ , Celegorm thinks, and if he can only keep from crying, he will have earned the title.

 

(He saw Maedhros go upstairs, arm around the neck of a girl whom Mother would surely call a _painted lady_ in a very disapproving tone. He felt a strange twinge as he watched his brother’s laughing mouth dip close to hers. Then he turned back to the dartboard.)

 

“How long do we have to wait?” he asks, not above a whisper. They waded into the creek, running as fast as their wet boots would carry them with the steady current driving at the backs of their knees. Celegorm knew perfectly well why Maedhros chose such a route; it would throw any dogs off their scent, and leave no tracks. The creek plunged through a thicket, yet still they followed it. The bowled recess of a pool was an unexpected stopping point.

They have waited half an hour; maybe longer. Celegorm is not very good at keeping time, by the moon or by counting, when his heart seems to beat so unevenly.

The leaf-shadows on Maedhros’s face make him no less pale. The freckles stand out against his cheeks, above and beneath the darker stripe of sunburned skin from which his hat has not shielded him, these many miles. In answer, he says, “As long as it goddamn takes.”

 

_Would you rather_ , asks a grinning Curufin, lurking under Celegorm’s eyelids if he closes them for more than a swift blink, _Kill a man because Athair asked you to, or because you thought you might die?_

The sky overhead is very dark. Celegorm wonders if a mountain lion will climb down from the hills and prowl at the water’s edge, seeking a meal of horseflesh or manflesh.

Huan would fend it off, of course. Celegorm switches his reins to his left hand and reaches for Huan’s dripping head with his right. The wet fur, the warm skin—this is what he needs to chase Curufin’s grin away.

“We shall have to take care in making our way back to camp,” Maedhros says. “Five wagons are near defenseless, with the few men we have.”

He does not say, nor does Celegorm ask, whether Galway and Jethro and Homer will remain with them, now that they are wanted in two territories.

 

(Maedhros seized him by the shoulders, and Celegorm badly wanted to be taken into his arms, to be pressed against his chest, the warmth and smell of him as familiar as that of Mother or Athair. Instead, Maedhros hissed, _the horses, get the horses_ , and shoved him away, as though he had not seen the blood on Celegorm’s hands, or the man twitching in the dust at their feet.

There were two more shots. There were shouts, and Maedhros dashing round the edge of the saloon, and then they rode like the wind.)

 

“Did you—”

“I shot the gun out of a man’s hand,” Maedhros answers, anticipating the question too quickly for Celegorm’s comfort. “A distraction. The other you heard was a stray; it missed me.”

So no one else was killed, this night. Celegorm looks at his hands; they are washed clean, if one were only to consider the color of his skin. He wishes he could cut them off and grow them anew, as lizards do with their tails. He wishes—

He is not a man after all, because he is crying. The dust has stuffed up his nose and he feels wetness snorting its way out of his nostrils.

“Fuck,” Maedhros mutters, and he digs in his coat for something. It’s the kerchief he wore around his neck, earlier in the evening. “Blow your nose, _cano_.”

He never calls Celegorm _cano_ ; that is an endearment reserved for Maglor and Fingon, the two brothers he loves best, even though Fingon is not really their brother at all.

The kerchief is wet but clean. Celegorm blows a dreadful array of snot and dried blood into it. He says, “It’s ruined, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care.”

“Do you care about a-anything?” He hates that he is stuttering.

“No.”

They are shivering in murky water, sheltered by unwilling nature from the rightful judgment of their sins. Celegorm thinks that this is the first time Maedhros has told the truth in weeks, and even so, he doesn’t believe it.

“It’s been an hour,” Maedhros says. “We can risk it.”

They wade back into the steady rush of the creek, and let the horses clamber up the bank first. Maedhros strips off his coat and throws it over the pommel of his saddle. The shirt beneath is done-up wrong, half-tucked.

Celegorm’s bullet hit the man in his sternum, which is a plate of solid bone (according to Fingon). Hard to cut through, for surgery, said Fingon. Better aim for throat or the belly, said Athair, if you only have a knife.

At close range, though, a gun is more than enough.

Huan shakes a blizzard of droplets from his coat and gazes up at his master, waiting for a command.

They ride north. Celegorm can tell that much by the stars. The trails are crooked, uneasy things, and Celegorm imagines being lost here, eating berries and roots and whatever he can trap and hunt. He feels sure that Maedhros would never mention what Celegorm did.

For once, Maedhros rides with his shoulders slumped, letting each knot and divot of their rocky road jolt him in the saddle. It is a painful way to ride.

Celegorm should be brave and stoic, should face down what he’s done. “Are you going to tell Athair?”

“I will tell him that we were threatened, and I shot a man in self-defense. He will believe me.”

Celegorm tries to swallow, and finds that his throat is pinched closed. Speaking, somehow, is still possible. “You would take _credit_?”

Maedhros jerks on his reins, and because he leads the way Celegorm must also halt.

Maedhros turns, spine straightening, his face in profile. Even half a sight of his expression is a terrible thing. “By all means, Celegorm,” he says coldly. “Claim your kill. Did the man cheat you at darts? Did he lure you out for a duel over honor? What possessed you to leave your position, and draw your weapon on a stranger?”

Celegorm sputters. The kerchief is clutched wetly in his fist. “It wasn’t _like_ that,” he shouts, voice ringing off the slabs of stone. “Not that you would _know_ , since you were too busy—”

“Bedding a whore?” Maedhros does not need to shout; Celegorm feels the quiet words like a blazing lash. “Indeed, Celegorm, you are learning that there are many ways to make our father proud.”

Celegorm swallows at last, wishing he could swallow his own tongue. “Does Athair know—”

“Of course not,” Maedhros answers. He taps his spurs and they begin their walking pace again. “I tell Athair only what he wants to know. To earn that knowledge, I do what I must. Did _you_ do what you must?”

Celegorm does not answer until they reach a plateau where they may overlook the hills and valleys alike. Then he dismounts, and waits.

Maedhros sighs heavily, but he checks his horse as well.

When they stand facing each other—Maedhros looking down a little, of course, for he is still three inches taller—Celegorm says, all in a breath, “He tried to take Huan.”

Huan’s ears twitch at the sound of his name. He has been following them tirelessly, picking his way over stones and thorns.

“He offered to buy him, he said, _never seen a hound like that_ , and I told him that Huan was not for sale, and he said he would take him anyway. I told him Huan would _bite_ him, and then I turned back to the dartboard.”

Maedhros waits, his face schooled into stillness.

“A little later I went out—only to piss, I swear! I wasn’t looking for trouble. And he was waiting for me. Stopped me and put a hand on me—and Huan bit his leg then, which must have changed his mind about wanting him, because then he _kicked_ him, and I—I drew on him. I wasn’t going to fire. Really I wasn’t.”

“Was he armed?”

“Yes.” Celegorm’s eyes flood, and his view of Maedhros wobbles, but the next part _must_ be said. “I saw him reach for his hip, and I couldn’t see—and I—it was just one twitch of my finger, as easy as anything.”

“It is very easy,” Maedhros says softly. “And it only gets easier.”

 “He screamed.” Celegorm’s voice might as well be speaking from the rocks at their feet, for all that it sounds like his own. “And he fell, and I ran to help him, for I thought—it must only be a wound, a wound like yours, I just—I pressed my hands over his chest and I felt so much blood and chunks of bone, I swear I didn’t—” He forces in a breath, like gulping down a mouthful of sand. “He did have a gun, but it was on the wrong side. I think—I think he was reaching for his purse, to pay me off, or—”

Huan whines.

“The second shot was not a stray,” Maedhros says. His eyes shutter—his lashes fan against his cheeks, long and curling like Athair’s, gold-tipped like Mother’s. “He was still breathing, though he could not be saved. I put him to rest, which his friends were too grieved and angry to do.”

Celegorm chokes on a sob. Holding it in is not bravery.

“Count the kill as mine and yours alike,” Maedhros says. “And whatever you wish, we shall say to Athair.”

Celegorm nods. They mount again, and they ride for a long way, climbing down a path so narrow that it seems likely to crumble away beneath the horses’ hooves. It is too dark for Celegorm to see more than the lights of the town in the distance, but if he gets his bearings, he can guess roughly where their camp should be.

Once, he asks, “Should we pray for him?”

“No,” Maedhros replies. “We do not have the right.”

Celegorm dares to say nothing, after that.

 

It is almost dawn. Celegorm’s trousers have dried stiff against his legs. The light mingles gold with the grey-mauve of the horizon.

They round the bend in the road that cordons the wagons behind a tumbled formation of rocks. Smoke still rises from the fire, and figures hunch around it—Athair, and Maglor, and the three newcomers.

“They came back.” Celegorm is surprised.

“They’re loyal.” Maedhros says. “Not all men trust the stories of mobs.”

_Even if the mob tells the truth_ , Celegorm thinks, stung.

Maglor sees them first, and leaps to his feet, fists clenched at his sides. Celegorm imagines that, were Athair not there, Maglor would fling himself across the fire and into Maedhros’s arms.

He would not do the same for Celegorm.

Athair’s jaw is clenched—worry, anger, some combination of the two. “Galway tells me that you fled a fight.”

Maedhros nods. “We should leave this place soon, take a different road.”

“Is that all you have to say?” Athair demands sharply. Celegorm realizes that Galway must have persuaded Athair not to search the town, and that such persuasion, though wise, would have been difficult.

Maedhros’s glance flickers to Celegorm and then he opens his mouth, no doubt to say, _we were threatened, and I shot a man in self-defense_.

“The fight was mine, Athair,” Celegorm says. “I shot when I saw him draw his weapon.” The half-truth is crueler, somehow, than an outright lie.

Athair stares at him for a long moment. It is a look not unlike that which he fixed on Mother, when she told him that she would not stay. But then the look vanishes, stowed deep wherever Athair keeps such wonderings and pains, and he says only, “We do what we must.”


End file.
